It was books and Roses Day in Barcelona.
It was April 23, 2017, and the yellow roses of resistance were blooming. Sant Jordi Day, St. George the patron saint of Catalonia, and the day, beautifully coincidentally, that both Shakespeare and Cervantes died. And of course, never forget that the day Shakespeare and Cervantes died was also Stella Coma’s birthday.
Every year on April 23, hundreds of thousands of Catalans filled the streets of Barcelona to enact the ritual of buying books and buying roses. There was no separation between amor and libros – they were celebrated on the same day. Typically, on that one day, about a million and a half books were sold in Barcelona, at the outdoor kiosks. One and a half million books, and seven million roses.
Red roses, traditional signal of love, s
